The wedding of Zara Phillips, the Queen's granddaughter, and former England rugby captain Mike Tindall took place at the church on 30 July 2011.

[6][7] The parishioners successfully petitioned the King to divert a mortification of Thomas Moodie of Sachtenhall towards defraying the costs of construction.

Suggestions for its use included a peal of bells for St Giles', a tolbooth above the West Port, and a stipend for the minister of Lady Yester's.

[9] Yet, on 15 May 1688, the Earl of Perth, Lord Chancellor of Scotland presented the Privy Council with a letter from the King, informing them that money was to be diverted towards a church in the Canongate.

From the Reformation, the Crown served as one of the church's patrons; but this connection ceased shortly after the Canongate lost its status as a separate burgh in 1856.

[17] The Royal Almoner distributed alms to poor Highlanders in the church during the summer months; yet this tradition ceased during the early years of Queen Victoria's reign.

By the early 19th century, the construction of the Regent and London Roads had diverted the main thoroughfare into Edinburgh away from the burgh and many inhabitants had moved to the New Town.

[19] and Walter Buchanan, minister from 1789 to 1832, described his parish thus: "The stoutest heart may well be appalled in looking upon the dismal abounding of iniquity, the unveiled and unmitigated vileness, the black and disgusting crimes, which by day and by night deform the sinning myriads of a populous and polluted city,"[20]By the mid-19th century, migration of Roman Catholics from Ireland had further changed the character of the Canongate.

The Canongate's minister between 1845 and 1867, Andrew R. Bonar, calculated that, in the parish, there were 411 families, of whom only 45 were attached to any Reformed communion, 70 were Roman Catholics, and 296 were unconnected with any church.

Alongside John Marshall Lang and Robert Lee, he was a leader of the liturgical revival in 19th-century Scottish Presbyterianism.

[24] In 1863, fire damaged the church and probably destroyed the Canongate records, which had been organised and bound during the ministry of John Lee.

McNair oversaw a revival in the church's fortunes: four years after his arrival, membership had doubled and the number of communications had more than trebled.

At the session's request, the American evangelists, Ira D. Sankey and Dwight L. Moody, held a series of meetings in the church during their 1874 visit to Scotland.

[30] White's ministry encompassed the First World War, during which, every available man on the Canongate signed up and 90 members of the congregation lost their lives.

The end gable is topped with a golden cross inside a pair of antlers, the now obsolete coat of arms of the Canongate, first placed on the apex of the roof in 1824 and replaced by those from a stag shot at Balmoral by King George VI in 1949.

The resulting reordering considerably increased the levels of light; the original dignified simplicity of the Kirk was able to be appreciated once more.

The Kirk was further restored in 1991 by the Stewart Todd partnership, followed by the installation of a new Danish-built Frobenius pipe organ in 1998, in memory of the late Very Rev Dr Ronald Selby Wright.

The Canongate Churchyard is the resting place of several Edinburgh notables including the economist Adam Smith, the philosopher and Smith's biographer Dugald Stewart, Agnes Maclehose (the "Clarinda" of Robert Burns), by tradition David Rizzio, the murdered private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the poet Robert Fergusson,[40] whose statue in bronze by David Annand stands outside the kirk gate.

[45] The Very Reverend Dr Ronald Selby Wright, known as the "Radio Padre" for his famous wartime broadcasts,[46] was minister from 1937 until 1977 and served as Moderator in 1972.

Dr Selby Wright was succeeded as minister by the Reverend Charles Robertson LVO MA, who retired in 2005.